I spent thousands trying to keep up with my rich friends and their very expensive luxury holidays. This is how the ‘wealth gap’ can impact friendships and lives – and what YOU should do if you’re in the same trap

‘We look forward to spending our big day with all of you,’ the email reads. ‘If any of you want to go on holiday and rent one of the villas we have booked, it starts from just £1,000 per person.’

I remember thinking, oh great, what a bargain – no. The year was 2011 and I was in my early 30s.

Last year I attended two amazing overseas weddings, one in the South of France and the other in Tuscany (plus a hen party in Barcelona), with different groups of friends who had very different incomes for me. I wondered how I would face the next one.

I was an assistant editor at the time and I think I was earning just over £30,000. I don’t remember exactly how much the two weddings and the bachelorette cost but when the lovely couple in Ibiza suggested we spend a week and share one of the villas they had booked, I should have known it would cost a small fortune.

I must have paid several thousand pounds on top of the flights, the wedding, the hen gifts and the new dress. Then there were long, languid dinners in the lively market squares, with copious amounts of wine and a variety of dishes.

Our group dinners involved taxis, cocktails, and sharing the costs of huge chunks of beef and salmon.

I didn’t want to be the friend who pulled out the calculator or insisted we pop into Lidl, so I bit my tongue. Even though I had wonderful moments, this situation revealed the difference between me and my friends, most of whom worked in banking and law.

Fast forward to today and the seemingly never-ending cost of living crisis and things are not so good. In fact, research from Airbnb and The Family Holiday Charity reveals there is a significant ‘holiday gap’ with more than a quarter (27 per cent) of UK families saying they cannot afford to go on holiday this year.

Nearly a fifth (19 per cent) have canceled a holiday abroad in the last six months due to financial concerns.

Another study by cashback provider Rakuten found that women spend an average of £2,414 a year maintaining close friendships, while young adults (aged 25-34) spend the most on travel to see friends. Birthday celebrations, birthday gifts (£463) and meals and drinks (£465) were also found to be the biggest expenses when maintaining friendships, with the average annual estimated spend being £555.

When I called out friends and colleagues with similar ‘wealth gap’ holiday stories, it clearly resonated.

Laura had been invited to Dubai to celebrate her friend’s 50th birthday, which wasn’t her cup of tea. He usually goes on holiday to his mother’s caravan in Wales.

Although her friends were happy to pay her to enjoy cocktails, clothes shopping, daily blow-dries in the hotel lounge and even a luxury boat they had booked, when she offered to have breakfast one morning, feeling like a bad relative, she was shocked to find it came to more than £180 for the three of them.

‘It was a great experience and I love my friend very much. But this level of generosity that influencers love is not for me. ‘I’m not angry at my friend and I never could be, but looking back I’m uneasy about the culture of wealth,’ says Laura.

Meanwhile, Anna is a marketing executive with a child at prep school and admits it’s ‘really challenging at times’, but her husband, a lawyer, says they can manage.

She was thrilled when she and another family from her daughter’s school were invited on a ski holiday to their chalet. He dutifully stocked up on loungewear and goggles from Vinted and Sports Direct and asked his friend if they could contribute to his weekly household expenses or pick up some wine on the way.

His jaw dropped when they went to his two-storey chalet in Morzine to find a private chef and nanny. They even had their own suite with a balcony and sauna.

“I remembered the joke I made about booking a flight on Sleazyjet and getting stung by all the extras, and I cringed,” he says. ‘I knew they were pretty well off, but I had no idea they were this rich. ‘They were very kind and welcoming but we spent most of the week feeling uncomfortable and awkward.’

Then there’s Jane, who was invited to a chicken dinner in Marrakech and spent more than £1,000 on a private riad with its own private chef and rooftop pool.

‘I left booking flights until the last minute and spent over £250 on them in addition to airport car parking. ‘Cocktails at a really expensive shisha bar cost around £200,’ he says.

But there were worse things to follow. ‘One of the girls had booked us all for a camel ride followed by an ATV desert tour. As a vegetarian, I hated to see poor camels tied up like this and dragged through the boiling hot desert. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to upset my friend, but it wasn’t something I chose to do. “When we rode the quad bike, sand kept getting in my eyes,” he says.

Georgina (pictured by models) says it clearly resonated when I called out friends and colleagues with similar ‘wealth gap’ holiday stories

Jane works part-time in the charity sector and earns much less than her rich friends, who wouldn’t mind shelling out a grand for a weekend. ‘But for me it’s a month’s rent,’ he says.

Yet another friend, Harriet, had to refuse to be a bridesmaid for a wealthier friend who was getting married in Tuscany on Friday because, as a part-time teacher’s assistant with two young children, she could not take time off from work and could not afford to spend a week in a private villa with the other bridesmaids.

The bride, who was an accountant in one of London’s leading firms, thankfully forgave him. ‘When they got back we went to dinner and she had enjoyed the wedding so much she didn’t care that I missed it,’ she says.

When I think of the best holiday I ever had with friends, it was probably a trip to Ibiza a few decades ago.

The year was 1996 and I had just turned 18. I don’t think any of us had a credit card (or mobile phone) to worry about, but as well as being delighted to have finished our A-levels, we were also united in the fact that we were all broke.

All five of us had jobs on Saturdays, but we lived off those two weeks on Pot Noodles and the free drinks they provided to get young women into bars in San Antonio. We shared a crappy two-bedroom flat in a rundown hotel and it was probably my favorite holiday ever.

As Shakespeare said: ‘My friends were poor but honest.’ And perhaps this is the best combination, at least when it comes to holidays.

Names and identification information have been changed